Stanford's
Nobel Prize-winning faculty, then and now

"The
Farm" is home to 15 living Nobel laureates ­ 12
affiliated with the university and three affiliated
with the Hoover Institution. Six additional Stanford
laureates are deceased.

The
business of "claiming" laureates can be
controversial: Where and when was a winner's work
done? Stanford, for example, lists but does not claim
laureates who are not on the faculty, even if they
have a significant Stanford connection. And Stanford
does not list winners with a more fleeting or tenuous
connection. John Steinbeck, the 1962 literature
winner, for instance, did not make the cut although
he attended Stanford ­ receiving a "C" in
freshman English in 1919 and dropping out in 1921,
only to reenter the university as a journalism major
in 1923 and drop out again in 1925.

Stanford
University laureates:

Kenneth
J. Arrow, the Joan Kenney Professor of Economics and
Professor of Operations Research, Emeritus; at
Stanford 1949-68, 1979­present. Awarded the 1972
Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory
of Alfred Nobel with John R. Hicks "for their
pioneering contributions to general economic
equilibrium theory and welfare theory."

Since
receiving the prize, Arrow has concentrated on
research in economic theory and, to a lesser extent,
operations. He has engaged in collective studies
designed to influence energy and environmental
policy. He has participated in the National Research
Council and presided over several learned societies.
At Stanford, he has served as a chair of the Faculty
Advisory Board and of the Faculty Senate.

Paul
Berg, the Robert W. and Vivian K. Cahill Professor of
Cancer Research, Emeritus, and director emeritus of
the Beckman Center for Molecular and Genetic
Medicine; at Stanford 1959­present. Awarded the 1980
Nobel Prize in chemistry "for his fundamental
studies of the biochemistry of nucleic acids, with
particular regard to recombinant DNA." The other
half of the award went to Walter Gilbert and
Frederick Sanger "for their contributions
concerning the determination of base sequences in
nucleic acids."

Since
receiving the prize, Berg has continued to conduct
research in the Department of Biochemistry, where his
focus is the mechanism of repairing DNA damage. He
continues to influence federal policy regarding stem
cell research, biotechnology and human cloning.

Steven
Chu, the Theodore and Frances Geballe Professor of
Physics and Applied Physics; at Stanford
1987­present. Awarded the 1997 Nobel Prize in
physics with Claude Cohen-Tannoudji and William D.
Phillips "for development of methods to cool and
trap atoms with laser light."

Since
receiving the prize, Chu has continued his studies of
laser cooling and trapping of atoms and their
applications. He also has expanding his research
scope to include polymer physics and biophysics at
the single-molecule level. As virtually all knowledge
of chemical and biochemical processes has been
deduced from experiments on bulk samples of
molecules, looking at individual molecules ­ such as
those involved in DNA replication, RNA transcription
and protein folding ­ may elucidate their complex
behavior. Chu served as chair of the Physics
Department from 1990 to 1993 and from 1999 to
September 2001 and is a member of the executive
committee for Bio-X, an interdisciplinary research
initiative at Stanford.

Arthur
Kornberg, the Emma Pfeiffer Merner Professor of
Biochemistry, Emeritus; at Stanford 1959­present.
Awarded the 1959 Nobel Prize in physiology or
medicine with Severo Ochoa "for their discovery
of the mechanisms in the biological synthesis of
ribonucleic acid and deoxyribonucleic acid."

Since
receiving the prize, Kornberg has focused on
research. From 1960 to 1990, he conducted research
that led to his discovery of how DNA chains are
started and elongated at the fork of the replicating
DNA and how the replication of chromosomes is started
and terminated. Since 1990, he has shifted his focus
to inorganic polyphosphate (poly P), a long polymer
of phosphates found in every living cell and
conserved from prebiotic life on Earth. Kornberg's
research is showing that poly P, long regarded as a
molecular fossil, has many important functions,
including cellular responses to stress and
starvation. It also is essential for the virulence of
bacteria that cause many infectious diseases.

Robert
Laughlin, the Anne T. and Robert M. Bass Professor in
the School of Humanities and Sciences; professor of
physics and applied physics; at Stanford
1985­present. Awarded the 1998 Nobel Prize in
physics with Horst L. Störmer and Daniel C. Tsui
"for their discovery of a new form of quantum
fluid with fractionally charged excitations."

Since
receiving the prize, Laughlin has supported
recruitment of talented new faculty and continued to
expand the depth and scope of his own research, which
is theoretical and focuses on how self-organization
and self-assembly arise in nature. This theme is
applicable in fields as diverse as cosmology and
biology, explaining Laughlin's work on topics
including subtle ordering phenomena in
correlated-electron materials, the physics of
transcription regulation in biology and the quantum
mechanics of black holes. About one-third of his
research students are undergraduates.

Douglas
Osheroff, the J. G. Jackson and C. J. Wood Professor
of Physics; at Stanford 1987­present. Awarded the
1996 Nobel Prize in physics with David M. Lee and
Robert C. Richardson "for their discovery of
superfluidity in helium-3."

Since
receiving the prize, Osheroff's research has
continued to focus on the properties of matter near
Absolute Zero. He recently received a NASA grant to
carry out two fundamental physics experiments to
further explore the properties of superfluid
helium-3. He participates in numerous outreach
efforts to encourage scientific education both inside
and outside the university. He teaches in the Physics
Department, where he recently became chair.

Martin
Perl, professor at the Stanford Linear Accelerator
Center (SLAC); at Stanford 1963­present. Awarded the
1995 Nobel Prize in physics "for the discovery
of the tau lepton." He shared the award
"for pioneering experimental contributions to
lepton physics" with Frederick Reines, who was
cited "for the detection of the neutrino."

Since
receiving the prize, Perl has continued in basic
scientific research. He conducts what he calls
"unpopular experiments in elementary particle
physics that could yield unexpected and profound
results." These experiments consist of searches
for isolated elementary particles with a fraction of
the electric charge of the electron. (All elementary
particles either have no electric charge, or the same
charge as the electron, or some integer multiple of
that charge.) Most scientists in particle physics,
astrophysics and cosmology do not believe such
particles exist, but Perl thinks that searches for
them have not been comprehensive and that no accepted
theory objects to their existence. His group is
looking for these particles in meteoritic material
from an asteroid formed four or five billion years
ago when the solar system was new. Perl also works on
the SLAC-based B Factory collaboration to study
matter and antimatter.

Burton
Richter, the Paul Pigott Professor in the Physical
Sciences at the Stanford Linear Accelerator Center;
at Stanford 1956­present. Awarded the 1976 Nobel
Prize in physics with Samuel C. C. Ting "for
their pioneering work in the discovery of a heavy
elementary particle of a new kind."

Since
receiving the prize, Richter has pursued research and
administration. From 1976 to 1982, he continued his
research at SLAC, but extension of the work required
a major advance in high-energy accelerators. Richter
went into administration, serving as director of SLAC
from 1984 to 1999, to turn that vision into what is
now a reality. He has since returned to physics
research, focusing mainly on neutrino physics, and
science policy. He is the current president of the
International Union of Pure and Applied Physics.

Myron S.
Scholes, the Frank E. Buck Professor of Finance,
Emeritus; at Stanford's Graduate School of Business
1983-1996. Senior research fellow at the Hoover
Institution 1987-1996. Awarded the 1997 Bank of
Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred
Nobel with Robert C. Merton "for a new method to
determine the value of derivatives."

Since
receiving the prize, Scholes has used his background
in options pricing, capital markets, tax policies and
the financial services industry as a managing partner
for Oak Hill Capital Management. He also is involved
in the private and public investment groups of the
Robert M. Bass organization. He also consults widely
with many financial institutions, corporations and
exchanges and continues to lecture worldwide. Scholes
was a principal and limited partner at Long-Term
Capital Management, L.P., an investment management
firm, from 1993 to 1998.

William
F. Sharpe, the STANCO 25 Professor in the Graduate
School of Business, Emeritus; at Stanford
1970­present. Awarded the 1990 Bank of Sweden Prize
in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel with
Harry M. Markowitz and Merton H. Miller "for
their pioneering work in the theory of financial
economics."

Since
receiving the prize, Sharpe has focused on research,
teaching and helping found a company designed to
bring knowledge from the field of financial economics
to bear on the problems individual investors have
saving and investing for retirement. Since 1996, the
company, Financial Engines, has employed computer and
communications technology to make high-quality advice
available to individuals at low cost.

Henry
Taube, the Marguerite Blake Wilbur Professor of
Chemistry, Emeritus; at Stanford 1962­present.
Awarded the 1983 Nobel Prize in chemistry "for
his work on the mechanisms of electron transfer
reactions, especially in metal complexes."

After
receiving the prize, he continued lecturing for a few
years, noting "considerable improvement in the
attentiveness of my students, though little in the
message or the way it was transmitted had
changed." He still contributes information for
Stanford's introductory seminars but discontinued his
research in August of this year. He continues to
engage in professional activities, such as reviewing
papers and consulting, but his major focus, he says,
is "enjoying life."

Richard
E. Taylor, the Lewis M. Terman Professor at the
Stanford Linear Accelerator Center; at Stanford
1952-1958 and 1962­present. Awarded the 1990 Nobel
Prize in Physics with Jerome I. Friedman and Henry W.
Kendall "for their pioneering investigations
concerning deep inelastic scattering of electrons on
protons and bound neutrons, which have been of
essential importance for the development of the quark
model in particle physics."

Since
receiving the prize, Taylor has continued research at
SLAC and in the Physics Department. His research
interests include experimental particle physics,
gravitational waves and space-based X-ray and
gamma-ray astronomy.

Hoover
Institution laureates:

Gary
Becker, the Rose-Marie and Jack R. Anderson Senior
Fellow at the Hoover Institution and University
Professor of Economics and Sociology at the
University of Chicago; at Hoover 1990­present.
Awarded the 1992 Bank of Sweden Prize in Economic
Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel "for having
extended the domain of microeconomic analysis to a
wide range of human behavior and interaction,
including nonmarket behavior."

Since
receiving the prize, Becker has focused his research
on habits and addictions, formation of preferences,
human capital and population growth. He is a
columnist for Business Week and served as an economic
policy adviser in the 1996 Bob Dole presidential
campaign.

Milton
Friedman, senior research fellow at the Hoover
Institution and the Paul Snowden Russell
Distinguished Service Professor of Economics,
Emeritus, at the University of Chicago; at Hoover
1977­present. Awarded the 1976 Bank of Sweden Prize
in Economic Sciences in Memory of Alfred Nobel
"for his achievements in the fields of
consumption analysis, monetary history and theory,
and for his demonstration of the complexity of
stabilization policy."

Since
receiving the prize, Friedman has continued research
into monetary matters in economics, analysis of
public policies and their effects, writing op-ed
pieces for newspapers and giving talks. He retired
from teaching at the University of Chicago near the
time he won the prize. He was an informal economic
adviser to President Ronald Reagan. He also has
written extensively on public policy with an emphasis
on preserving and extending individual freedom. From
1937 to 1981, he was a member of the research staff
of the National Bureau of Economic Research.

Douglass
C. North, the Bartlett Burnap Senior Fellow at the
Hoover Institution and the Spencer T. Olin Professor
in Arts and Sciences at Washington University in St.
Louis; at Hoover 1997­present. Awarded the 1993 Bank
of Sweden Prize in Economic Sciences in Memory of
Alfred Nobel with Robert W. Fogel "for having
renewed research in economic history by applying
economic theory and quantitative methods in order to
explain economic and institutional change."

Since
receiving the prize, North has conducted research in
topics including property rights, transaction costs,
economic organization in history, growth of
government, and economic and social change. In 1996,
he was elected a Fellow of the British Academy.